As you continue making a professional brand for yourself, all of your online communication platforms will have one thing in common. They will include a version of your professional bio.
Your social media accounts and professional website all should include your professional bio.
Writing your professional bio can be an intimidating task. It’s difficult to write about yourself. You’re uncertain what to include and how to write it in a way that is professional while simultaneously creative.
My advice is to first create a long form professional bio, the type of thing you would use on a resume website. From there you can edit and alter it into smaller bits as needed for other uses like LinkedIn or Twitter and also for running with guest blog posts.
Your bio should include these six steps, and should be written in the third person:
Step 1: Who You Are
Put your name in the first sentence of your bio so the reader knows immediately that he or she is reading about the correct person. It’s your virtual introduction.
Step 2: What You Do
Provide a general idea of what you do, establishing your industry. However, avoid being organization specific.
For example:
Kenna Griffin is an assistant professor of mass communications and a collegiate media adviser. Her primary areas of teaching are journalism, online media, public relations, media law, and media ethics.
Step 3: Where You’ve Worked
Describe your current job, business or professional experience.
For example:
Kenna joined the Department of Mass Communications at Oklahoma City University in 2003. She advises Oklahoma City University’s student newspaper, The Campus, as well as the publication’s online version, MediaOCU.com. She also oversees operations of the student yearbook, The Constellation.
Her professional experience includes working as a staff writer at The Oklahoman and managing editor for the Guthrie News Leader.
Step 4: Why You’re Worth Considering
Explain why you are worth considering as a resource or employee. This is the place to include publications, presentations, professional memberships, or awards.
For example:
Kenna is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, College Media Advisers, Oklahoma Press Association, and Oklahoma Collegiate Media Association, Women in Communications, and the Public Relations Society of America. She regularly speaks on journalism best practices and media advising at annual national and local collegiate journalism conferences. She also serves as a resource on these topics via her media blog, www.profkrg.com.
Kenna has a master’s degree in education from the University of Central Oklahoma and is a journalism Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma. Her academic research explores the conflict between journalists’ professional identities and their emotional responses to covering traumatic events. She is a two time Dart Foundation educator fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. She also presented her research on journalists’ emotions regarding witnessing executions at three national academic conferences.
Step 5: How to Find You
Include all of your relevant contact information—email address, telephone number, professional social media accounts, and website and/or blog URLS.
Step 6: Extras
You can personalize your bio even more by including elements such as a photo of yourself, a video introduction or links to your work. You also can provide details about hobbies or outside interests that make you marketable or establish your professional brand.
Once you draft this foundational professional bio of about five to eight paragraphs, it will be much easier to alter it for all of your various online platforms. You also should update the bio regularly so it stays current.
Remember that the important thing is to present a consistent professional message about yourself for potential employers and partners to see.
About the Author: Kenna Griffin is a mass communications professor, journalist, and collegiate media adviser. She teaches classes on writing, reporting, media law, media ethics, social media marketing, and also public relations. She is married, has two children, and lives in Oklahoma.
